


Melancholy Baby

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Awkward Crush, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Kissing, Awkward Romance, Awkwardness, F/M, First Kiss, Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 20:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7521331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's sad. </p><p>It's a dumb word. A scraped knee, when she's been bleeding out for ten years, but there’s no better word in his arsenal to describe what he hadn't really seen before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Melancholy Baby

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: An AU insert for “Home is Where the Heart Stops” (1 x 07)

 

* * *

_Come to me my melancholy baby._

_Cuddle up and don't be blue._

_All your fears are foolish fancies, baby._

_You know dear that I'm in love with you._

— Burnett & Norton

* * *

 

He'd be lying if he said pissed-off Beckett wasn't one of his favorite versions. Pissed-off Beckett is _definitely_ a favorite, and coaxing her to the surface is pretty much like breathing at this point. It's been just a few weeks, but he knows where all the buttons are. And, honestly? She's pretty much made of buttons, at least when it comes to him.

But it's not about playing favorites these last few days. It's not about how much fun it is to rile her up. It's not like he's hell-bent on beating his personal best time from smart-ass comment to physical violence. That's not why he's been poking at her. That's not what the bullshit on the firing range was about, and it's got nothing to do with the way he's been provoking her in fits and starts. 

She's sad. 

It's a dumb word. A scraped knee, when she's been bleeding out for ten years, but there’s no better word in his arsenal to describe what he hadn't really seen before. Whatever smug, self-satisfied crap he'd spouted on that first case, it was nothing better than a cold read. 

 _You're wounded, but you're not_ that _wounded._

But he'd had no idea in more ways than one, and now it blots almost everything else out. He can't _un_ see it _._ She’s sad, and it’s the version of her he can't seem to take. The version that has his mouth running and stupid ideas practically falling out of his brain, because he can't bear to see it _._

He'd watched eagerly enough, the first time they had JoAnne Delgado in. He'd watched her work, awed by how breathtakingly raw and open she'd been with the young woman, even though the parallels had to haunt her, right down to the resonance of names. 

_JoAnne_

_Johanna_

It had to be agony, and yet she'd looked the young woman in the eye and let everything spill out, daughter to daughter. Survivor to survivor. 

He'd watched eagerly enough until it was over. Until the sorrow washed in like the tide and her eyes dimmed with it. He'd watched and gone right back to business as usual. Needling her. Pushing and prodding. Coaxing pissed-off Beckett to the surface, because he can't bear to see her sad. 

 

* * *

 

The dress is a bridge too far. He knows that when the idea first strikes him. He knows before that, really. The whole thing is a bad a idea. He brandishes the tickets in the bullpen. In full view of everyone, so there's no way she can say no. He sees the flare of panic in her eyes and jumps on it. Needles her, because he'll take that blend of panic and _I-will-kill-you-Castle_ over sadness any day. 

But the dress? It's going too far.  He knows when he dials and answers the battery of questions the boutique has about the event. About the "lady in question." About everything. He knows when he hangs up the phone and it's a done deal. It's too far, and he's not even sure what it's _about._

Maybe pissing her off enough that she won't even show up. Maybe some kind of deluded sorry-a-murderer-ruined-your-life gesture, like ice cream therapy for a skinned knee. He doesn't know. 

It makes his hands clumsy. Not knowing himself any better than he knows her right now makes him so anxious and out of sorts that Alexis notices. 

_My dad, nervous for a date?_

_It's not a date,_ he says, and it resonates unpleasantly. It echoes together with their overlapping voices

_So you two aren't . . . ?_

_No_

_Not yet_

_Never_

It rings out and sounds miserably like the truth.

* * *

 

He's different since she told him. Not sad, exactly. Not even subdued. But he’s more careful with her. Or he means to be, anyway. 

He's a funny collection of gestures. Good at playing smooth a lot of the time. Leaning in, leaning back. Unconscious power plays that usually work for him, because his mind is sharp. It works quickly and efficiently, and he's good at reading a room. Good at reading people and knowing precisely how far is too far. Grinning his way right through the awkward moment and pressing on. 

She's a case in point. She was, anyway. For weeks it's been a dance between them, and though she'd die sooner that admit it, she definitely hasn't been leading. 

Oh, she's gotten her shots in. Stockpiled ammunition of her own and set him back on his not-so-smooth heels more than once, but he's been walking right up to the line for weeks. Erasing it with one toe and a cheeky grin. 

He's been goading and baiting and coaxing, then turning right around to make her laugh. To do something stupidly brave or say something remarkably compassionate or insightful or undeniable. He's pushed her and come away with more truth about her than anyone in years. 

It's why she told him, though she’s only come to that after the fact. Halting and dark-of-night as it all had been, she hadn’t exactly _decided_ to tell him, but it hadn't just poured out of her, either. 

She's never especially felt the need to share. Relationships have come and gone. Friendships, and she's doled out details to some and not to others. There's no compulsion to confess by any means, but no one's ever asked about the watch. No one's ever put it together. Built up a chain of evidence and just come out with it like that. 

_That what happened to your dad?_

No one's ever been brave enough to guess. To broach the subject with her at all, really, and so she'd told him. More of it together than she's told anyone in a long time. 

But he's different now. He folds in on himself and plants a fist against his lips, hanging back and listening. He second guesses himself. His palms turn up and his head ducks toward her. He launches into some sweeping statement he knows will have her pushing back. Giving things up, but he stops. He changes gears or goes quiet altogether. 

It’s like he’s afraid of her, and not the good way. Not the way he definitely _should_ be. 

It’s like he’s sorry for her, and she wishes she hadn’t told him at all.

 

* * *

She’s all over the map about the dress. 

By the time the buzzer rings, she's already completely spun up. She's furious with him to begin with. Furious with herself and Lanie and this closet full of godforsaken cocktail dresses. She's spun up, and as she stands in the center of this terrible garden of bright colors and awful fabrics, she’s thinks it'd serve him right if she tapped Ryan for this. It’s the twenty-first century, after all, and the tiny detective would look _great_ on Castle’s arm. 

Lanie walks in with the box. She reads the card aloud.

_Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo_

Her fury takes an abrupt turn. It finds focus, and she's ready to march all the way to Soho in her velcro-and-elastic towel, just for the satisfaction of punching Castle in the face. 

She’s ready to do some serious violence until she sees it. 

The dress.

It’s beautiful. The color and the neckline and lacing across the back. The scatter of crystal catching the light. It's more than beautiful. It's bold and wildly romantic. It's not careful in the least. It's beyond too much.

She loves it. 

* * *

They're off to a good start, and then they're not. 

His mother is sweeping and effusive. Alexis is quieter. Kind and a little awkward. 

And then there's him. 

His eyes light up when he sees her. His jaw actually— _literally_ —drops. It settles her nerves, that and that alone, though she hates herself a little for it. The dress looks good. She knows that, but his eyes light up, and she knows it looks good on _her,_ and that's a separate thing. A wholly different thing to have him fiddling with his cuffs and stop dead. To see his heart skip a beat. 

She thanks him quietly. 

He wasn't expecting that. Not at all, and it throws them both. 

It's the end of their good start. 

His eyes shift away and she's awkward and round shouldered all over again. She pulls the shawl closer around her. He looks guilty and tries to cover with elaborate goodbyes to his family. A protracted hug for Alexis that leaves her frowning at the new creases in his shirt front. Something menacing in Martha's ear that has the older woman shooing them both out the door in a hurry that makes Kate's stomach churn.

"What was that about?" she asks in the elevator, more to break the silence than anything. "The pantomime with your mom."

"Nothing," he says quickly. "Nothing I'll . . ." He shakes his head. Flashes a weak smile that makes her heart sink and her nerves flutter upward all over again. 

He's back to being careful, and it’s miserable. They reach the street. Her shawl slides awkwardly down one shoulder as she fumbles for her keys. The laces are too tight and the bodice feels paradoxically like it’s drooping. She feels conspicuous and detached and miserable. 

“Beckett.” 

He’s too close at her shoulder. At her hip and the bare skin of her back as the night air licks over it. He’s reaching for the edge of her shawl as the wind catches it, and he’s just too damned close.

“What?” She rounds on him right next to her car. She’s had it with him. Had it with _this_ , whatever it is now that he knows. “Castle, what is going on with you?” 

“I’m sorry.” He settles the airy fabric on her shoulder. He drops it and curls his fingers into his palm, a careful gesture like he wishes she hadn’t caught him with it. “I just feel like . . . before we’re in a confined space . . . Before I put my life in your hands . . .” He's trying for a joke. For lightness, but his gaze drifts to the dark interior of the car and he pales a little. “I just feel like I should say I’m sorry.”

“For?” She arches an eyebrow and waits him out. 

He crumbles instantly, and it makes her want to laugh. Makes her insides unclench in some messed-up way. He’s the right kind of afraid.

“For the firing range. And the tickets. And my mother . . .” He’s stuttering now. His hands are in motion like he’s broken loose of something. He reaches toward her and stops short. His palm curves in the air like he’s molding it to her bare shoulder. To the flare of her hip. “For the . . .” 

She cuts him off with a kiss. A wild, stupid impulse with no elegance to it. She knocks him in the back of the head with her clutch and the wind catches her shawl again. He snags it out of the air, blind even though his eyes are open wide enough that it’s comical. 

“The dress is great,” she says.

The words are more breathless than she’d like. More undone, when she'd meant to undo, and the balance of power shifts. He recovers. He tugs her toward him with the edges of the shawl and kisses her. Properly kisses her. 

“Great?” He's as breathless as she is. Points for technique, but just as breathless.

“Great.” She pushes him off, a little giddy, but in command again. As much as she ever is, anyway. As much as she has been for the length of this dance they've been doing.  “And if you ever pull anything like this again, I’ll shoot you. Now get in the car.” 

He gets in the car. They both do, and the air is crackling. It’s alive and dangerous and just the way it should be. The way it was before she told him.

“What?” She cranks the key. She doesn't have to look to know exactly which grin he has on his face as he buckles up. She doesn't have to look to know that it's smug as hell, but the right kind of afraid is there, too, flickering just beneath. 

"Hmmm?" Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him leaning back in his seat. "Oh, just thinking that Esposito has no idea what he's talking about . . ." He lobs it out there. It's over-the-top casual. Exaggeratedly nonchalant. It drags her gaze his way, and he doesn't have to look to know. "That crime scene this morning?" He smiles out the window. Touches one finger to the swell of his lip. "Not Beckett flavored at all." 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is what I was trying to write when Re/Bound happened. So. Yeah. My Brain is broken.


End file.
